Meltem Alemdar

The Development and Effects of Teaching Perspective Free-Hand Sketching in Engineering Design

As Computer-Aided Design software has become more advanced, the use of hand-drawn engineering drawings has greatly diminished. This reduction has led to free-hand sketching becoming less emphasized in engineering education. While many engineering curriculums formerly included courses dedicated entirely to sketching and hand drafting, these topics are no longer addressed by most current curriculums. However, it has been observed that sketching has many benefits including improved communication in the design process, idea generation exercises, and visualizing design ideas in threedimensional space. While isometric sketching has long been the preferred method in engineering curriculums, there are benefits of teaching perspective sketching including the creation of more realistic sketches for communication and idea generation. This paper presents the development of a perspectivebased sketching curriculum and the study of how this method compares to more traditional methods of teaching sketching to students in a freshman level engineering graphics course. The results show that the perspective-based sketching method leads to equivalent gains in spatial visualization skills and final design self-efficacy as the traditional method of teaching hand sketching. While maintaining these skills, the new method also taught students additional skills. Through surveys and interviews, the students expressed that these skills would be useful to them in their future coursework and careers. INTRODUCTION Several benefits have been found for teaching engineering students how to sketch. These include improving visualization skills, serving as stepping stones in the development of effective prototypes, and assisting in the design process by providing a method of tracking and developing ideas [1-5]. The traditional method of teaching sketching does prepare students to use the more modern CAD methods of creating representations by focusing on the sketching of simple objects in two-dimensional and isometric views and less on techniques to draw an object in realistic three-dimensions such as shading and perspective. While the CAD-focused method has been found useful in some applications, it runs the risk of missing out on benefits such as being able to quickly sketch to communicate an idea. Improving spatial visualization skills is often a critical outcome for CAD and visualization courses. Sorby (2009) says that the best way to improve these spatial skills is to “sketch, sketch, sketch” [1], but the more traditional method taught in engineering course does not focus on freehand sketching. Therefore, in a freshman-level mechanical/aerospace engineering course at Georgia Tech, we have begun to develop a more form and technique-based method of teaching free-hand sketching that is more commonly found in an Industrial Design or Architecture course. As spatial visualization has been found important in many fields, there have been several tools developed to test these skills including the Purdue Spatial Visualization Test (PSVT) developed by Bodner and Guay (1997) and revised by Yoon (2011) and the Mental Rotation Test (MRT) developed by Vandenburg & Kuse (1978) and Peters (2006) [6-11]. Also, curriculum changes or additions could affect Self-Efficacy for Engineering Design. Therefore, Carberry (2010) developed a method to determine design self-efficacy through four aspects: confidence, motivation, perceived success, and anxiety in performing engineering design tasks [12]. Proceedings of the ASME 2016 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference IDETC/CIE 2016 August 21-24, 2016, Charlotte, North Carolina

Latino parents’ educational values and STEM beliefs

Purpose This paper aims to provide a snapshot of K-12 Latino families’ beliefs about education, their awareness and interest in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) careers and their perceived educational challenges. It builds on the existent body of literature by dispelling pervasive notions that Latino parents do not value education. It contributes to the field by providing evidence of Latino parents’ beliefs, awareness and interest in STEM careers for their children. Design/methodology/approach This study reports the results of a focus group needs assessment conducted with Latino parents, surveys and interviews collected for three years during Latino family-focused events. Findings Surveyed parents thought children should attend college to prepare for a better future and career decisions should be dependent on their preference and vocation. They believed STEM careers were important for the Latino community and reported talking to their children about having a job in STEM. Parents perceived several challenges for their children’s education, such as cost, immigration status, lack of information and language barriers. Practical implications Stereotypes regarding Latino family’s beliefs about education have implications for how school systems, educational gatekeepers and stakeholders perceive these students’ opportunities. This paper discredits the perception that Latino parents are not interested in their children attending college or pursuing STEM careers. Originality/value There is a dearth of information about Latino families’ perceptions of their children’s educational goals, knowledge of STEM careers and their interest in such fields. This paper provides a fundamental step toward filling that gap.

Incorporating industrial design pedagogy into a mechanical engineering graphics course: a discipline-based education research (DBER) approach

BackgroundA redesigned curriculum for teaching engineering graphics was adopted in an introductory mechanical engineering course. The rollout of this curriculum was staggered, allowing for comparisons of student perceptions across the newly revised and previous instructional approaches. The new curriculum borrows from content and pedagogy traditionally employed in industrial design courses. The discipline-based education research (DBER) framework was used to investigate the manner in which the new curriculum was implemented and student reactions to this change. By using this approach, the researchers were able to incorporate and emphasize the unique aspects of the subject matter itself, as well as the attributes of the engineering discipline in which the course was embedded.ResultsResults indicated that students exhibited positive reactions to the sketching instruction, as well as various other aspects of the course, and that reactions were generally more positive among students in the redesigned course.ConclusionsThe contributions of this paper are twofold: illustrating the application of a specific research framework and providing results of an investigation of a redesigned curriculum. The redesigned curriculum was generally received well by students, and the partnership between the education researchers and faculty proved fruitful in allowing for nuanced investigation of the course redesign. Practical considerations for undertaking this type of research are also outlined.

A Meta-Analysis by Mathematics Teachers of the GIFT Program Using Success Case Methodology

The ICMI-ICIAM Discussion Document (2009), Educational Interfaces between Mathematics and Industry, talks about “… the intimate connections between mathematics and industry” and, for example, then says that”… mathematics is said to be used almost everywhere. However, these uses are not generally visible except to specialists.” The GIFT program is one whose goal is to bridge this gap through substantive projects, which bring practicing middle and high school mathematics teachers into industrial projects and then have them integrate their new experiences back into their classroom. Because of time constraints, teachers without firsthand knowledge cannot provide mathematical situations, which involve “real life problems.” The last sentence of 1.1 in the Discussion Document is especially in agreement with our approach; to wit, “In other words, learners should be equipped for flexibility in an ever-changing work and life environment, globally and locally.” From the GIFT experience, the flexibility should change the teachers’ outlook and, ultimately, the outlook of their students. The last four of the bullets of the “What are the aims of the Study?” and the last two of “Why is there a need for this Study?” fit well with the goals of the GIFT program. The issues of section 8 (Curriculum and Syllabus issues) and 9 (teacher training) of the discussion document fits well with regard to the goals of the GIFT project. The present work lays the groundwork for future projects motivated by the discussion document. The results of the present meta-analysis will ultimately be used as a basis for further analysis in a long-term project using a variety of methods for both math and science teachers.